Great Western Coffee Shop

Here's my timetable for tomorrow evening

Melksham - 18:55
Westbury - 19:20
Collect customer off 19:26 arrival
Westbury - 19:30
Melksham - 19:50

Melksham - 21:10
Swindon - 22:05
Collect customer off 22:15 arrival
Swindon - 22:25
Melksham - 23:10

Unacceptable alternatives - for customer (1) - 20:10 at Melksham with a bus from Westbury to Trowbridge, and change into ANOTHER bus there for the journey on to Melksham. For customer (2) - Change to a bus at Swindon for a Chippenham arrival at 23:05, from where a pickup run / taxi would be needed anyway.

On a "normal" Sunday ... this would be

* A 15 minute round trip from home to pick the first guest up at Melksham Station
* A 40 minute round trip from home to pick up the second guest from Chippenham as there's no late train any longer ... that went in 2006.

And what should it be?  Perhaps what it was when Wessex were running a train service - two fifteen minute trips to the station!


In other words ... what would have taken 30 minutes out of my Sunday evening 3 years ago will be taking 175 minutes tomorrow.  It's not just my time - it's also the fuel I'll be burning ... and I for one would be very happy if there was a mechanism by which the money I'll be spending on petrol could be saved, with the money going to a TOC to make it a more pleasant and quicker experience for everyone too!